In Contact Centers, oftentimes the incoming contact will be required to hold for excessively long periods of time, leading to customer dissatisfaction. Generally, there are limits to the amount of time a person will remain on hold without becoming upset about the opportunity cost of their time spent holding. When they are subsequently connected to an agent, the frustration of being on hold will often taint the whole customer experience and is very wearing on the agents as well. Also, if the contact is accessing the Contact Center by a toll free call, there is significant telephony expense to support that contact while on hold. While the contact is on hold, they must remain on the telephone. If the telephone is a corded model, their ability to do other tasks is restricted. Additionally, regular announcements to the effect of “please continue holding, we will be with you soon,” become a distraction to other work the contact is attempting to do while on hold. The contact on hold may also be irritated by the choice of music or advertising that is played to indicate that the connection to the Contact Center is still present.
Furthermore, contacts tend to initiate calls to Contact Centers at times that will cause “peaks” in the daily contact load. Depending on the application, these peaks will likely be realized at the beginning of the business day, at lunch time, and late in the afternoon. Staffing to meet these peaks will often leave agents idle during off peak times, and reducing the number of agents to match the average load for the Contact Center will increase contact hold times at these peaks.
Some Contact Centers provide a feature where a contact may leave a call back number so that when an agent is available, the contact will receive a return call. This is an improvement over holding for long periods, but it still means that the contact has no idea when they will be called, causing them to remain near the telephone and interfering with their involvement in normal daily activities while they wait for the return call. Further, the phone must be monitored and kept clear for the return call, lest they miss the important call back from the Contact Center. If the contact needs to run an errand, such as picking up children from school, there is a high likelihood they will miss the callback and have to start all over, unless the contact has a cell phone to give as the callback number. All of these tend to create the impression that somehow the Contact Center is “more important” than the contact.
What is needed is a Contact Center with a system that allows a contact calling into a Contact Center to receive service without unreasonable delay. What is also needed is a Contact Center that can accommodate contacts who call during “peak” hours by allowing the contact to choose a convenient time to call into the Contact Center, thereby conveniently scheduling a callback time into the contact's daily schedule.